


The Magician

by ButterflyBunny



Series: Avengers' Infinite Playlist [18]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Cell Phones, Fireworks, Fix-It, Fourth of July, Hurt Steve Rogers, M/M, POV Steve Rogers, Phone Calls & Telephones, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Protective Natasha Romanov, Sam Wilson Is a Good Bro, Steve Rogers Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-05
Updated: 2016-07-05
Packaged: 2018-07-14 22:24:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7193291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ButterflyBunny/pseuds/ButterflyBunny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Remodel. [rē-mŏd′l]  </p>
<p>to alter in structure or form. Reconstruct. Make over.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Steve listens to Tony’s message.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Magician

**Author's Note:**

> The events here take place around the same time the previous instalment of this series "[Blindsided](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7193039)" take place.

_[(Heal – Tom Odell)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVxdY4rWIlQ) _

  

He reads Bucky’s notebook for the fifth time that night. It had been hiding in the backpack he kept with him during the pursuit in the tunnel, Sharon had thrown it in her trunk with the shield and Sam’s bird costume. He chuckles at that and Sam asks him what’s so funny, he doesn’t ask him to got to his room, as if he knows what Steve is feeling at that moment. What that is, he doesn’t know, but later he would call it comfortable numbness, when he’s in his bed unable to sleep because it had been over a month an the phone remains quiet.

Sam tells him the others are already safe.

Scott had his secret identity so he wouldn’t be hunted down, that and he was friends with a millionaire. Wanda and Clint had left with Pietro somewhere cold, that’s all Clint said, Wanda had hugged him tightly and cried against his shoulder, she then smiled and told him it was because she was relieved. She made him promise he would write and then she hugged Sam asking him to write to Pietro because he missed him too.

“You need to rest, Cap" 

“Don’t call me that” Steve says quietly.

Sam nods and leaves him to sleep.

 

* * *

 

Steve doesn’t.

 

He doesn’t for three days.

 

* * *

 

He hates fireworks.

They remind him of the time when he wasn’t Captain America, and even though he’s far from suffering PTSD, the memories he had from that time weren’t always good, at least the one’s without Bucky. He tries thinking about the ones with Bucky, about his mother, Coney Island or riding in the back of freezer trucks, but the loud explosions and the colors from the Fireworks lighting up the skies don’t let him think property. How funny, he thinks, how he never lost one fight but still lost everything and everyone he cared about. Was that winning the fight but losing the war?

But he still has Bucky , Steve tells himself.

“Hey” Sam sits with him, both looking outside the window of the small apartment they would have to leave in a few days just in case.

“Hey” Steve rubs his eyes.

“You look bad” Sam says.

Steve nods, “Good" 

The man presses his lips, “Stop punishing yourself for this, Steve, it’s going to kill you”

Steve looks at him, “I’m sorry, Sam” he says, “I’m sorry about this, about the raft… this stupid apartment”

Sam shakes his head, “Stop it, Steve, stop”

Steve looks away and then he feels Sam’s hand in his shoulder. The man squeezes at the same time the fireworks cease, the night is silent again and the skies go back to be in darkness. Sam takes his hand away and then stands up, he looks tired too, but somehow doesn’t look defeated.

“I never really liked fireworks” Sam says, he then looks at the clock striking 12:00 a. m.

“Me neither”

“Happy birthday, Steve” Sam says.

Steve smiles softly, realising is already the fifth.

He’s glad he has Sam too.

 

* * *

 

Sam tells him a few days later, when he returns the phone Steve hadn’t even realise was gone, about Tony’s calls, his messages and about their short lived conversation. He’s not upset about it but he doesn’t talk to Sam the next day or the day after that one, instead he locks himself in his room thinking about the messages Tony left, because he’s not sure if he is ready to listen what Tony has to say to him, but somehow he knows he deserves it.

_You have 4 messages_.

He takes a deep breath.

_First message._

“ _I’m still angry_ ” Tony says, “ _And I still believe I did the right thing, even after all that happened, after Rhodey, after…_ ” There is a pause and Steve’s throat goes tight, “ _I’m still angry_ ”

That wasn’t much.

Then why does it hurt so badly.

 

* * *

  

“I get you are angry” Sam says over supper the next day, “But look at you, Steve, you have punished yourself enough, I didn’t want him to add to that”

Steve stares at him for a few seconds. He understands where Sam is coming from, they only have eachother for now and the way Sam looks at him like he’s scared he is losing him or like he already lost him, makes him regret his behaviour lately. Sam leaves to his room and he doesn’t see him the rest of the day.

He knocks on his door before he goes to sleep. Sam is listening to his ipod when he opens the door and he raises an eyebrow to Steve. Of all the people Steve had met in the new century Sam was one of the few he could understand without actually having an argument.

“I’m-”

“Don’t say it” Sam says.

“This is the last one” Steve chuckles, “I’m sorry” he says.

Sam nods, “Fine” he says, “Also, Wanda sent you something”

He goes to his room with Wanda’s package in his hands. He opens it carefully, feeling excited as a kid in christmas morning. Is an old Frank Sinatra record, there is a letter attached to it, his name written outside in Wanda’s elegant handwriting. There is also a post-it, it says “ _Take care, old man_ ” and he smiles to himself, Clint always said little and meant a lot. He listens to the record while reading Wanda’s letter where she tells him about Pietro and Clint fixing their new home – He feels glad she can call it hime, wherever that is – about Ruby the horse and Bobby, another enhanced like her. He reads the very last line several times, Wanda always knew what to say.

_We are fine, safe. For that we thank you._

He smiles, his eyes filling with tears. And for the first time in weeks he feels like he’s actually resting as he drifts into a deep sleep.

 

* * *

 

He tries keeping his mind occupied, because when he is not thinking about Tony, when he isn’t running things in his mind over and over trying to see where did he go wrong, or where did Tony went wrong, he thinks of Bucky. How he let him slip through his fingers more than once, and one time literally.

T’Challa made him promise he wouldn’t concern about his friend, he was under the protection of a king now, and that was more than he would ever be and more than he could offer him. Still, he waits everyday for news from Wakanda day and night, and one day Sam gets home with good news, Bucky had been awoken to be under examination and things were looking good. He wonders if Sam is only saying it so he doesn’t worry, if he’s telling a white lie for him to stop acting like the world has ended and it was his fault. It doesn’t take the weight of his shoulders, but he smiles at Sam and nods, his friend looks relieved and that does take a weight of his shoulder.

He can hear the sound of the shield hitting the ground while he dreams that night. The metallic noise bouncing against the walls and the screams of Tony telling him he doesn’t deserve him, that the shield doesn’t belong to him and he failed as Captain America. One of those things wake him up, covered in cold sweat and warm tears, and is the though of not deserving to be loved by Tony Stark.

That takes the sleep from him for a few days.

“ _Who won, Steve?_ ” He asks, “ _Was it me? Do you think I did? Because I felt like I did, sometimes I do, and then I look at Rhodey, I look around me and I see no one_ ” he can hear Tony’s heavy breathing, “ _And you left me and I can’t even get rid of that stupid shield_ ”

Who won? That takes days more of sleep from Steve. Luckily, Sam doesn’t notice.

 

* * *

 

Sam notices.

 

He also notices Steve starts to heal afterwards.

 

* * *

 

Steve writes Wanda back. He asks her to tell Clint that Scott is good too, Lang met with Sam the day before and Scott told him he had already seen his daughter. He tells her to ask Clint about Natasha, because those two are used to sharing each other’s secrets and he really needs to know if Natasha is safe.

Sam tells him that he is looking better lately – he had lost weight and slept very little – now he looked healthier and he’s happy about that. Steve is too. He tries to distract himself from the phone, mostly because he’s afraid about what Tony has to say to him and in part, because he’s afraid what the last message would say.

“ _Is it over, then?_ ” Steve’s heart stops, breaks all over again, “ _I win but I lose because you are not here? Where’s the logic in that?_ ” the sad chuckle takes the air from his lungs, “ _Maybe the winner doesn’t take it all, mm?_ ” 

Damn, Tony, you have all the right questions.

 

* * *

 

Steve gets to the conclusion that he doesn’t have any answers.

 

* * *

 

“ _You look better than a few weeks ago, Steve_ ”

Steve was taking a run that morning when a kid walked over to him with a disposable phone. The child insisted the call was for him and that it was urgent.

“Natasha” Steve says.

“ _The kid’s not mine, I swear_ ” She chuckles softly.

Steve chuckles too, looking around for a familiar redhead somewhere, “Good to know”

“ _How are you, Steve?_ ”

Steve sits on the nearest bench, “ _Better, truly_ ” he says, because Natasha sounds concerned, “ _You?_ ” 

“ _Better_ ” She then adds, “ _Truly_ ”

Steve nods, “ _You around?_ ”

“ _Maybe_ ” She answers, “ _I’ve been keeping tabs on all of you_ ” she continues, “ _Most of you, I have yet to receive a response to all that fan mail I sent to King T’Challa_ ” He can almost hear her smirk, “ _Do you think he will answer?_ ”

“Maybe” Steve retorts, Natasha laughs, and he’s disappointed he can’t hear her near.

“ _Steve_ ” Natasha says after a few seconds of silence, “ _Time does heal_ ” she says, “ _it heals men like Tony… And supersoldiers, too_ ” 

Steve swallows, “I-“

“ _Call him_ ” Natasha says, “ _If there is something else… something else to say, something to clear up…_ ” She trails off, “ _At least he’s one call away_ ”

Steve closes his eyes remembering Bruce. If Natasha hadn’t being able to find him maybe no one was, and he feels bad because he knows Bruce left believing that Natasha had failed him somehow. He feels even worse because he knows Natasha feels like she failed him too. Natasha then asks him about Sam and if he received Wanda’s letters because she did got a few. That confirms his suspicions that Clint is the only one who knows where Natasha is, maybe she told him, he doesn’t ask.

“I miss you, Nat”

 Natasha sighs, “ _Me too_ ” she says, “ _But right now is not a good time for me to… be there_ ”

Steve nods, “I understand” he licks his lips, “But I don’t want you to be alone…”

“ _I’ll make sure I surround myself with people_ ” She says.

“Good people?”

“ _I can’t promise anything_ ” She says, a teasing tone, “ _Once things are better…_ ” Natasha adds.

“Soon?” Steve asks with hopefulness.

“ _Better late than never_ ”

Natasha hangs up and he throws the cellphone one the nearest garbage can because well, is Natasha, it was a waste of time to try to track that call. At least she is safe. Wherever she is.

 

* * *

 

He can’t stop thinking about Tony after that, and he plays the next message once he arrives home.

“ _If we had have more time, Steve, maybe things would have been different_ ” Steve runs a hand through his hair, “ _But I don’t need time alone, without you, I don’t need time to know that I love you_ ” he says, “ _Still_ ”

He feels his chest swelling, his heart trying to jump out of his ribcage. That is the answer to the question Steve had been afraid to ask out loud, did Tony loved him? After all, even after all, Tony was still his’. And Steve knew he was still Tony’s.

 

* * *

 

The phone rings later that night, and Steve answers in a heartbeat but Tony is already talking.

“ _Listen, I-_ “ 

“Tony”

Steve lets the rest of the world disappear. He wanted Tony and himself, just the two of them even for one second, or at least while the call lasted.

“You… You wanted to tell me something” He says quietly.

And waits.

“ _You said if I needed you I could call_ ” Tony says, “ _I need you to be sorry_ ”

He is.

“ _And I need you to forgive me_ ”

He can.

“ _and Steve I-_ “ He takes a deep breath, “ _I need you_ ”

He does too.

But he keeps it to himself, because of how tired Tony sounds, maybe tomorrow they can talk. Tonight he is fine with just listening Tony’s breathing as he clearly falls asleep with the phone against his ear.

“Aright, Tony” Steve says, “Alright”

Is when the calls gets disconnected that he realises even after all Tony loves him truly. He smiles despite the tears rolling down his cheeks, despite his heart trying to pound out of his chest and clutches the phone harder in his hand, being careful not to break it. He realises too, that they can be mended, because they once mended each other.

 

 

_“Take my mind and take my pain like an empty bottle takes the rain, and heal, heal… And tell me some things last.”_


End file.
